Are Ikea Appliances a Good Deal?
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Visit an Ikea on any given weekend, and you’ll see people lingering in the kitchen department, dreaming of transforming their own kitchen into a sleek and stylish space—without spending a fortune. Ikea sells everything you might need to make that dream come true, including major appliances.
Many of Ikea's appliances boast stainless finishes, clean lines, and sleek handles. Their prices are also attractive, though not always the lowest we've seen.
"Ikea's appliances are made by Whirlpool, and they're sold only at Ikea," says Mark Allwood, the analyst who covers the appliance market for Consumer Reports. "Ikea's prices are competitive, but what sets them apart is the five-year warranty. Most major appliance brands carry a one- to two-year warranty." Ikea's reassuring warranty applies to all appliances except the Lagan and Tillreda lines.
Are Ikea appliances as good a deal as they seem? Consumer Reports’ experts tested a variety of Ikea appliances to find out how they perform.
How We Test Kitchen Appliances
In our range and cooktop lab, we time how long the highest-power burner takes to bring a pot of water to a near boil, then how well it provides low heat, for, say, simmering tomato sauce. We also measure oven capacity and test baking and broiling functions, where applicable.
Every refrigerator we buy and test gets placed in a temperature-controlled chamber, to evaluate thermostat control and temperature uniformity—we gather more than 5.4 million temperature readings from each model.
For microwaves, we measure how evenly each model reheats a dish of cold mashed potatoes, how well it defrosts a pound of frozen ground beef, how long it takes to bring a liter of water to a boil, and more. Engineers in our dishwasher lab load each dishwasher with 10 place settings of white ceramic dishes with baked-on food and run it using the normal cycle. When the cycle is complete, they use a photo-imaging machine to determine precisely how clean each dish is.
A Smorgasbord of Ikea Appliances
Here’s a detailed look at 12 Ikea appliances, including ranges, dishwashers, and refrigerators, as well as a cooktop and an over-the-range microwave. Some fared well in terms of performance—others, not so much.
See our full appliance ratings for a look at how Ikea appliances stack up against models from other brands.
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